A day after Kadima leader Tzipi Livni told Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu that she will not bring her party into his government, both her Kadima rival, Shaul Mofaz, and Labor chairman Ehud Barak engendered hope that a national-unity government can still be formed.
Sources close to Barak said they expected pressure on Labor to join the government-in-formation to grow over the next few days, creating an atmosphere that would make it difficult for the party's leaders to refuse generous offers from the Likud.
Likud officials have been lobbying Labor MKs intensely in recent days and have made it clear that more than half of the party's 13 MKs could be ministers or deputy ministers.
They have also emphasized that Barak was badly needed in the Defense Ministry due to the looming Iranian threat.
"In the next few days, Barak could say that at such a fateful time it would be irresponsible to allow Netanyahu to form a right-wing government that could endanger the country's future," a Barak confidant predicted on Saturday night.
"He is not ready to say it yet, but pressure will grow over the next few days. Reality will require us to join in the end, but meanwhile we have to play it cool."
Barak's associates stressed that he had not yet made a decision about whether to join the government, but they said that if he did decide to join, eight or nine Labor MKs would support him, perhaps even including MK Ophir Paz-Pines, one of the most vocal opponents of Labor entering a Netanyahu coalition.
One senior Labor official stressed over the weekend that serving as second fiddle in an opposition led by Kadima would render the already-dwindling party completely irrelevant.
"Our possibility is between quick suicide with Netanyahu or slow death with Livni," he said.
On the other side of the table, sources close to Netanyahu admitted that he preferred Labor to Kadima in his coalition all along, but that he had been aware it would be tough for Barak to persuade his party to join the government if it did not get at least 15 seats, and it won only 13.
Likud officials said they were also still hoping that Mofaz could force Livni to form a coalition negotiating team.
Mofaz will push Livni to form such a team - or at least appoint a mediator - in Monday's Kadima faction meeting. His confidants said that Kadima ministers had finally realized since Livni turned down Netanyahu on Friday that this was their last chance to speak up and prevent the party from going to the opposition.
"What the Likud offered can certainly be a basis for talks," Mofaz said in closed conversations over the weekend. "The people want unity and before you slam the door on it, you have to at least check whether we can find common ground with the Likud."
Mofaz said over the weekend "he was convinced that the party will still join the coalition. Good sense will win out. The diplomatic issue was not an excuse to not join.
"Netanyahu will talk to the Palestinians and try to reach a deal with them. He knows that this is his last opportunity. When he gets to the White House and talks to Obama it will lead to him removing outposts.
"He knows he needs the world's support, because what matters most to Netanyahu is the Iranian threat," Mofaz added. "As long as he is willing to do that and to change the governmental system, there is no reason to stay out of the government."
